All posts tagged "implicatures"

Some of your questions are themselves pretty loaded and full of
question begging. Eg, "Maori should not receive special treatment",
which implies that Maori already do receive special (and presumably
favourable) treatment -- this is itself opinion. In this way your
questions actually create some of the sentiment they supposedly
measure. Can't you think of other ways to phrase these questions that
don't assume opinion as fact?

And my reply to the reply:

On 10/02/16 08:01, XXX wrote:

The question was formulated in that manner specifically because it does not logically imply that Maori receive, or do not receive, special treatment. If the question were phrased as “Maori should no longer receive special treatment,” that would be a different matter. Hope that answers you question.

Thank you for taking the time to write back. I think the nub of the issue is the difference between logical implication, and what linguistics people or philosophers call implicatures (that which normal people infer even though it is not uttered), and the valence attached to "special treatment".

Imagine your HR department running a survey at your workplace, where one question was "Susan should not receive special treatment." I don't think you would feel very good about that, even though it does not logically imply that you receive special treatment.

This is what I am concerned about when I say this was a loaded question.

Having thought about what would be more constructive, I would prefer questions that were about already existing facts. For example: "The government should fund health programmes that target Maori health." This would still measure attitudes in a useful and interesting way, but it wouldn't reinforce a particular existing discourse about Maori the way that "special treatment" does.